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  Satisfied, he flung away the smoking weapon and turned toward the code breaker. He raced forward and hauled the man to his feet. LerekhoVs legs buckled and he sagged in Bolan's grip.

  Whatever boost the injection had given him was gone. Lerekhov looked up into Bolan's eyes, tried to smile, then his head sagged.

  "No!" Bolan snarled.

  Frantic, his fingers went to the man's neck, feeling for a pulse. Though weak, a pulse was present. The old man had merely succumbed to shock and fatigue. Bolan lifted him in his arms, stood and began to race the last fifty yards to safety.

  At the far edge of the building Bolan couldn't rouse Lerekhov. His pulse was thready and weak but present and the man still breathed, but he would not wake up. Bolan cursed and laid him down.

  Working quickly, he shimmied out of his knapsack and reached inside and drew out the rappel ribbon he had secured there along with a harness. He worked quickly, sliding on the rappel harness and a welder's glove while ignoring the sounds of gunfire and explosions coming from the city side of the resort.

  He found a communications satellite relay to handle the hotel's international television and clipped the rappel ribbon around it, then ran it through the twin D-rings on his harness. He dropped the coil of ribbon over the edge and moved over to the immobile Lerekhov. The man's eyes fluttered, but he didn't rouse and Bolan was through trying.

  He felt empathy for the old man, respected how much he'd risked to come this far. "I'll get you out," he promised. He bent and yanked the man up before ducking and draping him over his shoulder.

  With good technique and a solid harness, rappelling could easily be conducted with only one hand. For military applications this allowed a weapon to be fired and certain specific methods such as the face-first Australian style had been adapted to capitalize on that.

  For Bolan it meant he could keep one arm around the unconscious code breaker and control his descent from a single fist tucked behind his right hip. He stepped over to the edge of the building and looked down. He saw some civilians running across the lawns and gardens set between the hotel and the river. They didn't look up and he remained unnoticed.

  He stepped over the edge, balanced briefly, then lowered himself smoothly until his legs were parallel to the ground. He kicked out away from the wall and bounded down, tightly controlling his speed by squeezing his fist around the sliding ribbon.

  As always, physical prowess was a paycheck Bolan cashed time and again in his War Everlasting. Like a professional athlete he lived or died, excelled or failed, according to his state of fitness. Mental toughness and battle-tested instincts were indispensable, but they relied on a body in peak physical condition.

  The Executioner dropped the fifteen stories in leapfrog movements, kicking away from the wall, falling, swinging in, kicking out again, dropping farther. The rope screamed as it slid through his grasp, and the heat was building up across his palm, threatening to create a friction burn.

  Lerekhov was a still, inert weight over his shoulder. Bolan slid down the last two stories in a final jump and quickly unhooked the excess ribbon from the D-rings on his harness. He was pleased with his progress so far. He had managed to move a well-guarded target across nearly a dozen internal-security checkpoints from various forces and the ubiquitous eyes of the security cameras and put him down just yards from the extraction point.

  With the code breaker still on his shoulder Bolan turned and began to run toward the sluggish brown water of the big river. He shook the welder's glove off his right hand, which still smarted from the friction of the rope, and drew his pistol.

  The attack by his allies in the KNLA guerrilla group had been meant to distract the better coordinated and armed military and security units away from Bolan's route. Several blocks over from the ambush, police forces were tied up managing the riotous crowds.

  All he had to do was make it to the river.

  A knot of Asian civilians he had seen on his rappel down suddenly turned toward him. Bolan's veteran instincts began to scream. He saw a blocky Asian man with fish-paste skin suddenly throw a half-smoked cigarette to the ground and lift an expensive cell phone while slapping a slender companion to his right.

  The skinny man whirled and his eyes widened when he saw Bolan race past them with the unconscious Lerekhov thrown unceremoniously over one shoulder. The man plunged his hand into a brown canvas suitcase and reemerged with a cut-down Chinese shotgun.

  No, Bolan thought as he pivoted, not the hit team. He raised the Beretta as the man tossed the suitcase away, all pretenses gone. Just over the shotgun-wielding killer's shoulder Bolan saw two more Asian men in the same plain, dark suits running toward them.

  Their briefcases and duffel bags were discarded as submachine guns appeared in their fists. He stroked the trigger on his Beretta, firing from the hip. The shotgunner sagged as a triburst hammered into his chest. Beside him the killer with the cell phone was clawing for a pistol under his jacket.

  Bolan, still sprinting, shot him on the fly, striking him high on the shoulder in his haste. As he adjusted his aim, he realized he wasn't going to beat the men behind the initial pair to the trigger. He shot the cell phone hitter as he dived forward, letting Lerekhov hit the ground and sprawl across the grass.

  The pair racing toward the battle lifted their weapons, and desperately Bolan tried to bring his own pistol around to bear. He hit the ground and rolled, flinging his gun hand out straight and trying to take aim.

  The pair of gunners suddenly began to twist and jerk like marionettes in the hands of a crazed puppeteer. Jets of scarlet burst from them in arcs and craters were blown out of their shirts and flesh. An instant later Bolan heard the staccato hammering of an assault rifle.

  He turned his head toward the river and saw Charlie Mott in the bow of a rigid-hull assault craft. The Stony Man freelance pilot lay belly down on the edge of the boat, an M-4 carbine chattering in his hands.

  "Come on!" he yelled.

  Bolan jumped to his feet as Mott scrambled backward toward the stem of the raft where the twin outboard engines purred with suppressed energy. Bolan reached down and jerked Lerekhov up by the collar, then stooped and bear-hugged the man.

  He squeezed the old man to his chest and ran, the frantic beating of the code breaker's heart evident against the birdcage of his ribs. Bolan scrambled down the bank and into the water.

  He grunted with the effort as he heaved the Russian into the boat. Bolan closed one hand across the gunwale of the boat and Mott deftly twisted the craft around in a tight arc and pointing it downstream.

  Bolan scrambled over the edge and Mott raced down the river.

  * * *

  Three hundred yards downriver Jack Grimaldi waited with rotors turning on the flat-decked, converted garbage barge. Together Bolan and Mott maneuvered the unconscious Lerekhov into the helicopter.

  "Benson and Sparks?" Bolan demanded as Grimaldi lifted the helicopter up and raced for the coast.

  "Already in Thailand!" Grimaldi shouted. "Nice job, Striker! Hal's going to be ecstatic. The Man took a real personal interest in this one. Those Iranian codes are going to change everything."

  Bolan exhaled deeply and collapsed back in his seat. He reached over and grabbed LerekhoVs wrist in his hand, making sure the pulse was present. When he felt it, he grinned and gave the Stony Man pilots a thumb's-up.

  * * *

  "I don't need to tell you what a great job you did today, Mack," Hal Brognola said into the video conference camera. "But I'm going to anyway—that was one hell of a stunt you pulled off in Myanmar."

  "Nice to be appreciated," Bolan said.

  He settled back into the leather seat of the executive jet as Grimaldi raced across the night sky toward a U.S. military outpost in Djibouti. A Special Forces medic and a CIA flight nurse were in the rear of the passenger compartment with the sleeping Lerekhov, monitoring the President's latest acquisition in the war on global terror.

  "Yes, it is," Brognola said. "The Man thinks
so, too. He wants to thank you personally."

  "I don't know, Hal..." Bolan began.

  "I won't hear of it, Mack. You deserve it, he owes it and it can only help Stony Man."

  "All right." Bolan relented. He was too tired to argue. "I'll meet with him. When and where?"

  "He said as soon as you touch down," Brognola said. "He doesn't care what he's doing or what time it is, he wants to thank you personally. Those Lerekhov written codes for the Iranians are critical, but a personal thank-you like this has been a long time coming. You'll probably ride in a secure limo with him for ten minutes, then he'll go make a speech and you can catch some much needed R&R."

  "Sounds like a plan," Bolan agreed.

  23

  Caine stayed in Washington and stalked the President like an enthusiastic fan. He watched the news, read the Web sites, learned to know the players on the scene from the safety of his television and the public library computer screens. The country was at war, threats were real: 9/11 had proved that. Of course that truth had resulted in one hell of a blank check.

  He caught his chance more quickly than he could have dared hope when it was announced that the President would attend a high-profile function at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. For a brief moment the building horror of the Iranian confrontation took a backseat.

  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sat on the east side of the intersection of Independence Avenue and Fourteenth Street. Caine knew from his research that the Washington D.C. Police Department would erect a security cordon around the area, directing traffic. Secret Service countersniper teams would deploy on rooftops and bomb-sniffing dogs would patrol the street in random sweeps.

  On the day of the function Caine put the Buick Skylark into position first. He waited with patience of the hunter for the spot at the intersection of Independence and Fifteenth Street. He backed into the spot so that his trunk was pointed due west, out toward the traffic on Fifteenth Street.

  He got out of the car dressed in upscale casual clothing like a lobbyist on his day off. He had sealed the Astrolite A into plastic gallon bags inside the bins, including one with the cell-phone detonator. Over this he had packed in fire-retardant foam from commercial extinguishers, an old drug smuggler's trick to neutralize scent.

  He knew the plan wasn't perfect. Perfect was for theoretical worlds. In the land where people got dirty, risk factors could be reduced but never eliminated. There was risk involved. It wasn't like writing opinionated political drivel on an Internet blog; it was getting the deed done.

  He left the car and went to place the van.

  He parked the twelve-seat Dodge van in one of the lanes specially designated for those commercial enterprises on Fifteenth Street at the point where Independence Avenue divided Fifteenth Street from 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place. He had constructed a tight kill box. To the north the Washington Monument thrust upward like a finger into the sky.

  He got out of the tour van wearing generic blue coveralls and a Washington Redskins baseball cap while he placed his Maintenance placards, fore and aft of the van, warning the other tour crews of his mechanical problems. He did this very late, toward the end of the business day, as local tours stopped running at 3:00 p.m., but well before the Holocaust gala was scheduled to begin.

  He used the public rest rooms near the Washington Monument to strip out of his cap and coveralls. While he changed into his street clothes and stuffed his disguise in a black nylon gym bag, he reviewed his plan.

  As he walked across to the National Mall to where he'd left the Suburban, he whistled "It'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" and he felt pretty damn good.

  * * *

  As promised, Brognola had arranged for Bolan to accompany the President in his limousine on the way to the Holocaust memorial. The Man had insisted that only a personal thank-you could adequately express his appreciation for the success of Bolan's most recent overseas mission.

  "Without your assistance, threats on foreign soil and here at home would be looming large," the President told Bolan.

  "Thank you, sir," Bolan said.

  Though they were traveling inside a bulletproof limousine in the middle of a highly secure presidential motorcade, Bolan hadn't relaxed his vigilance. He was scanning the crowd of spectators that lined the streets, eager for a glimpse of the President. The Executioner couldn't help thinking that regardless of his recent success, danger was never nearer than now. His battle senses were on high alert, and despite being surrounded by the presidential security detail, he couldn't escape the feeling of an approaching threat.

  * * *

  Caine had stacked his drugs like his body armor, each pill working like the snip of the scissors, cutting him off from his past, from himself, from any hope of a future. His mission was deeply personal, the way the most important missions always were, but it was about more than him, more than revenge.

  Official mantles had a way of insulating their holders from the consequences of their actions. A government official couldn't be sued for actions taken in the course of his or her duties. The government didn't offer the right of litigation against itself. Individuals made decisions that affected millions on deeply personal levels and then fled to ivy-covered citadels protected by protocol and legalese.

  A government should be afraid of its people, not a people afraid of its government.

  He sat in the blacked-out Suburban and watched the Capitol police block off the side streets as the presidential procession rolled through. From his vantage Caine could see the front of the Holocaust procession. He made no moves that would alert the Secret Service countersniper marksmen.

  Out of respect for their capabilities he had combined each of his vehicle-based improvised-explosive devices with hundred-pound smoke bombs. The resulting smoke on top of that from the primary explosions would saturate the area around the blasts with thick, choking smoke. Visibility would be obscured at close range. Rooftop snipers would be useless.

  He wore body armor rated up to .30-caliber weapons. The ceramic and titanium plate inserts would negate most long guns for at least a couple of shots. The Secret Service was armed with Beretta pistols and H&K MP-5 submachine guns, both chambered in 9 mm. His Kevlar weave alone would reduce their impact to the point of negation.

  It would hurt each time he was hit, but that was what the drugs were for.

  Caine recalled the December 1997 robbery of the Bank of America branch on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood. The resulting shootout with police had changed the face of American law enforcement. Only the lesson, much like the Columbine massacre, had not been universal and not every law-enforcement agency in the country had learned it.

  The two Bank of America robbers had been armed with main battle rifles, heavy body armor and their systems flooded with barbiturates, making them impervious to pain, shock or the effects of panic. They had walked through hails of 9 mm police gunfire, their body armor protecting them from the majority of wounds, the barbiturates allowing them to simply ignore the rest. The bank robbers had used their own Kalashnikov assault rifles to blast apart police vehicles, penetrate officer body armor and suppress platoons of law-enforcement agents.

  They couldn't be stopped. One had committed suicide in the middle of the street. The second had finally been taken out by leg and head shots at nearly point-blank range only after dealing out a horrendous amount of damage.

  Caine intended to do them better. Always in good physical condition, the weight of his body armor was hardly a burden. He had begun gobbling Oxycotin. The popular painkiller produced not only incredible analgesic capabilities, but also provided a powerful but calm euphoria. Caine was physiologically incapable of panic.

  When the drug began to make him woozy, he snorted crank until his brain buzzed like high-voltage wires and he felt as if he could fly. As the presidential motorcade rolled past to attend the Holocaust gala, Caine began placing drops under his tongue designed to keep female dogs from going into heat. In humans the fast-acting
anabolic hormone caused extreme levels of aggression and, when mixed with methamphetamine, Caine had efficiently changed his biological makeup into that of a homicidally enraged sociopath.

  Better killing through modern chemistry, he thought.

  To his main vest Caine had added both sleeve and waist-bib blast-protection attachments designed for bomb-squad personnel. He wore steel-toed boots with tough rubber soles and the same shin guards and hockey masks utilized by riot police. Over the black face mask he wore a Kevlar helmet with a face shield. Designed to fit law-enforcement and military helmets, the shield featured integral rubber seals to provide a liquid barrier at the helmet-shield interface.

  As the night deepened, he felt increasingly powerful, invulnerable. Like Darth Vader or a Storm Trooper commando, he thought, impersonal. He listened to a classic rock station with his AKM resting across his lap like an obedient dog while he worked at the folds of the government letter in his hand like a string of prayer beads. He sang along to songs on the oldies station, trying to keep a lid on his rage. He didn't think about anything but the skyline above the Potomac.

  He felt the rising power welling in him in an emotional volcano as he sat behind his blacked-out windows and waited for his chance. People had begun to gather outside the Holocaust Memorial waiting for the President to exit his vehicle.

  Caine wore pistols under either arm and on each thigh. He slid the sling of the Kalashnikov around his neck and checked the seat of his 200-round drum magazine. He had a skeletonized boot knife hanging upside down from his dual pistol harness. He reached over and opened the glove box, pulled an ice pick out and stuck it deep in the passenger's seat.

  He hit the power button on his CD player and keyed up his copy of Metallica's Kill 'Em AH album. The uncompromising riffs at the beginning of "Seek & Destroy" filled the cab, and Caine's eyes narrowed like a cat's in pleasure. He felt his heart begin to pound in his chest, and goose bumps rose as adrenaline flooded his system. He felt good, felt alive and he wasn't thinking about Charisa or Emma or the old man alone in that trailer park, or about Justin who'd been sold out to politics in a desert nation halfway around the world. He patted the folded paper of the government letter.